KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has granted post-arrest bail to a former SHO in a kidnapping for ransom case.

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput, allowed the bail application of former Sachal SHO Shaikh Muhammad Shoaib alias Shooter against a solvent surety of Rs0.5 million.

The applicant had approached the SHC after the trial court dismissed his bail application for allegedly abducting Mohammad Sharif in September 2014 from a hotel in Scout Colony and demanding ransom against his release.

After hearing the parties concerned, the bench noted that the applicant had obtained bail in the present case in 2017, but absconded in the following year and it did not transpire from record if the requisite formalities for proclamation of proclaimed offender under Sections 87 and 88 of CrPC were ever fulfilled by the trial court.

It also noted that the applicant had surrendered before the trial court in 2023 and obtained pre-arrest bail, but the same were dismissed in March 2024 and he was taken in judicial custody and, thereafter, his post-arrest bail was also dismissed.

“The applicant is confined in judicial custody for last more than one year and he has sufficiently been penalised for his alleged act of ascendance after obtaining bail on merit”, it concluded.

The applicant is also facing trial along with various other police officers in the extrajudicial murder of Naqeebullah.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2025